Feature: Global warming challenges farmers to use high tech solutions to use less water

Feature: Global warming challenges farmers to use high tech solutions to use less water

by Nick Kolyohin

Climate change dramatically affects the agriculture industry. The growing number of extreme weather events like droughts and heat waves push farmers to use water resources efficiently by implementing innovative technology.

Water is becoming one of the most precious natural resources around the world. Water scarcity already incites conflicts in some regions around the world.

"Because of climate change, the radiation of the sun becomes very strong and also leads to more evaporation of water," said Dr. Michal Levy, acting chief scientist and senior deputy director-general at Israel's Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development.

Levy promotes agricultural innovation with a new project of agriculture and energy ministries aiming for dual use of the limited agricultural lands in a small country like Israel, "we are starting a commercial experiment hopefully this year," said Levy.

The basic idea is to utilize agricultural spaces on top of them with photovoltaic panels that will generate renewable, eco-friendly energy from the sun and, at the same time, protect crops from over solar radiation.

First trials will be carried out in about 100 villages throughout the country, and studies from around the world have shown that agro-voltaic facilities reduce the impact of weather damage on agricultural produce, stated the ministry in a press release.

Solar panels provide "some shade and because of that will be less evaporation of water and less harmful radiation," said Levy.

Israeli agriculture has been developed over the years in harsh conditions of constant water shortages and scorching weather, while significant parts of Israel consist of deserts and semi-arid climates.

Israel, renowned for many decades as a drip irrigation innovative leader country, invented cutting-edge technologies to optimize every drop of water in the most efficient way.

In recent decades Israel also became a world leader in the desalination of water. Five desalination facilities throughout its Mediterranean coasts generate almost all the country's tap water.???

Israel's agriculture uses mostly recycled water, another area in which Israel leads the world, yet the farmers strive to save water because its cost is high.

Haya Rak–Yahalom, managing director of Northern Agriculture R&D, said that climate change and global warming is a "painful truth" that is a challenge to agriculture.

There are about ten times more extremely hot days a year than it was just a few decades ago in northern Israel, noted Rak–Yahalom.

Rotating solar panels in farms and orchards could not just facilitate harmful sun radiation and heat but moreover, could provide essential energy for more advanced technological installations in agricultural fields, stressed Rak–Yahalom.

Connection to power would allow saving water, using fewer pesticides, and improving yields by the implementation of precision agriculture technologies that need to be connected to electricity.

Agriculture fields usually don't have the electric infrastructure, and it is an obstacle that prevents the implementation of high-tech solutions in orchards, plantations, and farmlands.

Prof. Menachem Moshelion, expert in plant-environment interactions at Faculty of Agriculture, Food, and Environment at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, researches ways to produce more crops with less water.

"We study the plant response to abiotic stresses, like drought or salinity, which are major, major problems in today's agriculture and for sure in the coming future because of the global changes," said Moshelion.

Increasing temperatures with less and less available water resources are going to reduce the amount of yield plants can produce. Moshelion with his team are looking for the best performing breeds of plants in this harsh new reality.

"We can literally screen hundreds of plants to measure their response to the stress and select the one who performs the best for future breeding processes," said Moshelion.

Using innovative technology makes it possible to irrigate, fertilize and use pesticides in the best performing amounts, and by this saving water, money, resources and reducing unwanted contamination of ground, underground water, and harmful chemicals on crops.

Using less water is a challenge, "you have to know how much the plant transpires, one maize plant one single plant can lose water in its own way, it could be two liters per day per plan", stressed Moshelion.

For example, to produce one banana in Israel, on average, there is a need for 100 liters of water to irrigate the plant, "it's a lot," Moshelion looking for methods to reduce water usage, "and for this, you have to improve the plants' genetics."

Prof. Avital Bechar, director of the Institute of Agricultural Engineering at Agricultural Research Organization Volcani Institute, noted that there are several revolutions nowadays in agriculture.

"New technologies, robotics, precision agriculture, smart agriculture, and artificial intelligence, all of them are now starting to be more and more embedded in agricultural systems", said Bechar.

Bechar expects that growing crops indoors will become more common in the future, "the climate is becoming harsher, and also when the growth would be indoor, it can be very clean without any pests that enter into the building or diseases."

Future agriculture technology could revolutionize the way food is produced, with the ability to monitor the whole process of crop growing and build precise algorithms to optimize water and resource consumption.

Another initiative is to produce crops in a lab by reproducing vegetables and fruits with 3D printers but to do so, scientists would need to comprehend how mother nature makes crops from A to Z. Enditem

(Nick Kolyohin)

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